Sound Off
The direct ancestor of both the iPhone and the iPod Touch is the iPod. Apple has taken great care to ensure that both devices continue the legacy of the iPod by providing users with an elegant and familiar interface for playing audio. The interaction between applications, the operating system, and the iPod application has been carefully designed to allow interoperation without diminishing the value of the user experience.
The iPod application recognizes incoming telephone calls and fades to silence to let users answer and take part in conversations. When a call is disconnected, the iPod application fades the audio back in and resumes playback at the last known point in the track. If the iPhone receives a text message while the user is listening to music, the SMS alert sound plays along with the current song. All standard notification sounds work in the same fashion.
The sound off anti-pattern occurs when applications take exclusive control of the audio features of the device despite the preferences of the user.
Games are particularly guilty of implementing the sound off anti-pattern. Many games include rich sound effects and audio tracks. In an attempt to avoid auditory chaos, developers often give their applications exclusive use of the audio output mechanism, effectively silencing the iPod against the wishes of the user.
The Cocoa Touch audio frameworks allow developers to take control of the audio, but the practice is generally undesirable. Instead, developers should ask ...
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